Night Quote analysis sections 5&6

“’Blessed be the Name of the Eternal!’ Why, but why should I bless him? In every fiber I rebelled” (Weisel 74).

                               By questioning God, Elie expresses doubts about his religion and his faith.  This is a result of all of the Jews going to the Concentration Camps.  This rebellion goes against Elie’s character throughout the whole book up to this point.  I don’t think he really means what he is saying here.  This is just a reaction to the situation in which he and his fellow Jews find themselves.  This is probably a reaction of depression or anger to the ‘neglect’ they have been shown by God.  I feel that this is a result of the oppression of their race by the Germans.  They have been down trodden by the rule of a ‘more powerful’ race than their own.  Their oppression is illustrated by the fact that the Germans are eradicating most of the Jews.

“’I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else.  He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people’” (Weisel 86).

                               By speaking positively about Hitler, Elie is conveying his distrust of God and his Word.  This is a result of the harsh treatment the Jews have undertaken.  The mood in this quote is severely negative.  This is caused by the total neglect of the Jews while they are at the camps.  The Germans just use the Jews for pointless labor.  Then the ones that can’t withstand the treatment or the labor are gassed then their bodies are burned in the incinerator.  This treatment has destroyed the all of the optimism of the Jews.  These few statements actually depict the struggle that these people have had to withstand.  The people of God feel like they are worthless and so is his Word.  They feel they have to go through this time of death and despair alone without the guidance of their God.

Night Quote Analysis Section 3

“’Men to the left!  Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short simple words.  Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother.” (Weisel 38)

                               I feel this quote means a lot to the book.  It symbolizes the start of when Elie becomes a man.   This is a symbol of how you have a certain ‘rite of passage’ so to say of your entrance into manhood.  This is usually when you have to tough it on your own for the first time.  I think that this moment in Elie’s life is crucial to his later development.  This is development that takes place despite Elie’s imprisonment in the concentration camp.  Although the deportation to the concentration camp is an extremely negative, I feel that this moment can be compared to today’s world when a senior graduates high school and then they have their last summer at home.  Then, they leave most or all of their family for a college or university.   Although an eighteen year old leaving home for college is a positive experience, the feelings of separation are the same.

“In the shade of the block, we then had a little siesta.  He must have been lying, that SS officer in the muddy barracks.  Auschwitz was in fact a rest home…” (Weisel 50)

                I feel Elie is mistaken in his assumption that Auschwitz is a rest home.  When in reality, this quote is trying to demonstrate that the ‘veteran’ workers are trying to cut the newcomers some slack. In my opinion, this is probably since the workers that have been there longer knew that the newest deportees needed to recover as soon as they were brought to the cell block.  I feel that this ease that Elie feels could be due to the ‘veteran’ workers trying to help the newcomers survive.   Possibly, the older workers may have already seen some of their friends gassed from not regaining their strength when they were first brought to Auschwitz.

Night Quotes sections 1&2

 “She pointed her arm toward the window, screaming: ‘Look!  Look at it! Fire!  A terrible fire!  Mercy!  Oh, that fire!’” (Weisel 34).

Foreshadowing is connected to this quote by the Jews arrival at Auschwitz.  Madame Schachter’s words seem like the incoherent thoughts of a crazy lady but she actually isn’t crazy in the slightest.  She has a premonition of what is happening deeper in the camp.  So she didn’t actually see the fire with her own eyes; she had a vision and tried to warn the Jews in the car.  These words foreshadow what is going to happen to most of the Jews in the car.  They will die from working or being gassed and then they be burned in the incinerator.  Earlier in the book, Elie talks of studying sacred texts; one of them may have been related to the old testament of the bible.  There, he must have learned about the Jewish exile to Egypt.  In one of the plagues sent down upon Egypt the Jews were warned by Moses to put lamb’s blood on their doors so that the angel would ‘passover’ that house and the first born son would be spared.  These types of warnings and premonitions were all over the old testament of the bible and sacred texts that the Jews in this book would have known; however, they totally disregarded Madame Schachter’s vision as any type of warning even though they had studied events such as this in the bible.  This foreshadowing is proven at the end of the section when it says specifically, “In front of us flames.   In the air that smell of burning flesh.  It must have been about midnight.  We had arrived –at Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz” (Weisel 37).

“At that time, it was still possible to obtain emigration permits for Palestine. I had asked my father to sell out, liquidate his business, and leave.  ‘I am too old my son,’ he replied. ‘I am too old to start a new life. I’m too old to start from scratch again in a new country so far away…” (Weisel 18).

By having this discussion with his father, Elie is showing that he felt an urgent desire to move very far away from the war and to the home of the Jews in Palestine.  He wants to leave for the safety of himself and his family.  There, he could also learn more about all parts of his religion.  I feel this is true because he specifically asked his father to sell out his business to others and start a new life in Palestine.  I think that in this quote Elie is very concerned about the deportation of foreign Jews, including Moche the Beadle.  After his deportation, Moche was able to escape since the Gestapo mistakenly presumed he was dead although only his leg was wounded.  I think Elie feels that what has happened to the foreign Jews could be a sign of things to come for all Jews.  Moche’s accounts of his deportation only add to the desperation Elie feels as he yearns for his family’s emigration to Palestine.